Reflections
by anja-chan
Summary: Reflection: 1 contemplation: a calm, intent consideration ; 2 the phenomenon of a propagating wave being thrown back from a surface; 3 expression: expression without words; 4 mirror image: a likeness in which left and right are reversed.
1. Chapter 1

_Reflections_

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"Hallelujah...."

The name reflected off his lips, splitting into fractions, fragments, that resounded between him and the glass windows. It wasn't him, and yet it so certainly was. Who else could he see in his reflection but himself?

He knew that no one who looked in a mirror was actually seeing himself or herself correctly. Illusion. The shiny glass didn't show the truth. But the backwards reflection was the only way people could see themselves at all.

A smirk that wasn't on his own lips. "What's it this time, Allelujah?"

His heart beat to a quicker tempo. Who's heart was it really though?

"We share the same heart, Allelujah. That's why I won't let us die." The smirk was gone, the golden eye piercing, reflecting, echoing into his soul. Silver-grey into yellow-gold, he was looking into himself. Monstrous... maybe.

"I don't think you have a heart, Hallelujah."

He meant for a quiet voice, achieved the feel of it, but heard the laugh. He wondered whether it echoed only inside the confines of his head or whether the reflection held the truth this time. If anyone saw him now... Setsuna, Tieria, Lockon, Lasse, Sumeragi, Feldt... what would they think of him? Would they hear a one-sided conversation? A snatch of laughter? Or the complex mixture of sounds from both personas resounding down along the corridors, certainly the voice of the orange-vested pilot, but distorted by inflection, reflection, the sense of direction misplaced.

"You know you don't have to hate me." The image in front of him gave his head a quarter-turn. Allelujah didn't know who moved.

"Do we ever?"

A strange double image of seeing himself alongside himself. For a moment, perhaps his real reflection saw himself in the glass. Or was it just the blue-white of a star pretending to be grey? His mind often played tricks on him that way.

"There must be a way for this to end, right, Hallelujah?"

"I won't let us die."

"That wasn't what I meant."

"I know. But it's what I mean."

A half-smile. Black-green hair swaying in the cool oxygen draft that rebounded along the hallways. They were being courteous because they could afford to now. In the cockpit, the midst of battle, enemies all around, so much confusion, no time for affection or perfection of words.

"I don't hate you."

"Me neither." A pause, the sentence left hanging ambiguous. "You know what I mean."

He looked away, but of course, the presence was still there. Permanent, constant, hiding in his mind—their minds—even if the mirrors and scattered reflections gave them both a truer and still copied form. When the positions were reversed, he liked to be seen the same way—that is, to be glimpsed at all. At other times, he wasn't sure who was the reflection and who was the figure. Selection of the recollection in a gold or silver orb.

"Accept, Allelujah."

"Are we both real?"

"Accept, Allelujah."

"I don't think I can forgive you."

A raised eyebrow, an artificial questioning of the truth. "Face it, you can't forgive yourself."

"Am I you?"

"Who else would I be?"

"Hallelujah...."

A softer smile, near pity, gracing his sharp features. The golden eye caught him again, the eyebrow slender and straight but for an upward cast meeting the dark hair covering his face.

"I'll take care of you, Allelujah." A sincere gaze, no smile in elegant seriousness. "The things that hurt you, or scare you; I'll protect you from them. It's what I've always done, so don't expect me to stop now."

A pause. Silence to reflect over the words, perhaps unspoken, but certainly thought. Then a grin from one, a soft smile from the other, expression caught between the mirror and image, merging them into one.

He turned from the window, from where the stars flickered, winking their way through their glittering eyes and reflections.

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_Okay, thanks for reading. I know it's super short, but I was trying something waaaaay different here in terms of style, so I'd really appreciate reviews to let me know whether it worked or it didn't. I know the grammar sucks, but I was more interested in focusing in whether it was readable and simple yet elegant observations_._ So... my question really is, could you, as a reader, understand more or less what was happening?_

_And if you really liked it, I might consider writing more of Hallelujah and Allelujah's interactions (with much more substance than this drabble) in a pretty poetry-filled prose way.  
_


	2. Chapter 2

**Reflections**

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"...Allelujah." The silver-tongued voice echoed, a line of smooth jaw caught unexpectedly in a window. The sliver of his face, refracted prism-like back into his eye.

Lockon was looking at him, almost a question in his Irish eyes and again he never knew whether he—the other he—had spoken aloud. It could just as easily been the sudden thought that affected his physical reflexes, a tremble of surprise, the reaction to his attention now elsewhere. They all moved on, and the window fell behind.

"You're still in control, Allelujah," he laughed, his resonance sounding like a sigh. It whispered, windswept and wild through his mind.

Allelujah didn't talk back—he couldn't, not with the other pilot, green-suited and green eyes still following his own green-black hair swinging over a hidden eye, color unknown. He wondered.

"It's natural, you know, for us." Serious now, although the smile seemed part of his separateness, unable to secede from his voice. Permanent proof that there were two personas. "You can hear it—the difference between the inner and the outer worlds."

He understood what was meant, but didn't believe it. Listening to whispers, another question lingered, echoing down the corridors of synapses.

"We're both true. You only want to think so because we spend more time this way. You're just as real as me, Allelujah."

It was true. People only saw a single silvered eye, the other hiding in shadows. But why from that darkness could the self command and understand more easily?

"Stop worrying about it already, Allelujah. I already told you didn't I? We're both true." Annoyed, irritated at the repetition, replication, duplication. Allelujah sank away, his doubts weighing him down.

"_You want to get something to eat?"_ Lockon, floating just outside the mess hall, their body next to his.

"Yeah, sounds good." His voice reverberated in his ear, the pulse of language pounding through his jaw. "Who knows when the next mission will start?"

A smile from without on a broader face. _"Better get our energy while we can, eh Allelujah?"_

"Exactly," he replied. They entered, taking trays, and sidling along the plexiglass shields, food below and faces above. It reflected.

"You're still thinking about it."

A piece of chicken, potatoes. Sometimes he debated becoming a vegetarian.

"You _can_ talk to me when others are around." The sound of derision and the knowledge that one was better than the other. He was inhuman.

"Superhuman, Allelujah." The voice said pointedly. "And you do too know how. You're nearly doing it right now."

A pause. But how? How?

"You think too much, too many, at the same time. Relax, be clear, be concise." Patient, as he almost never was.

A deep breath, oxygen floating in, both eyes wanting to close and simply enjoying being alive. The sun and the moon both waning, gently giving in to the impenetrable darkness. Restoring, rejuvenating, replenishing the reflections. They opened their eyes and in a dazzling flicker of clarity, they saw wholly as one.

"I don't doubt anymore," he said.

"_What was that?" _A simple comment, quick question, and the moment vanished.

A smirk and an honest laugh. "Now you just need the practice, Allelujah. I'll let you take care of that slip now." The face didn't disappear from the fake glass, but it was no longer his reflection.

"_Allelujah? What did you just say?"_ Still curious, but not terribly interested.

"Ah, nothing," he responded to the outside world. "I was just thinking aloud."

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_Okay, another little drabble. Please leave a quick comment if you want. I'm thinking of a few more of these because they're quick and fun for me. Let me know if you think I should continue. XD_


	3. Chapter 3

**Reflections**

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They looked out the window at the cusp of the earth, a glow along the atmospheric horizon. Red clouds at the curve swirled gently, the rest hidden in blackness along a long dark line contoured against the dissimilar elevations of mountains, oceans, plains, and hills. Black ribbons of rivers caught the moon's reflection and shot the rays back to space as white light.

"She's not down there, you know." The twilight before dawn crept slowly over the world, brightening immeasurably along lines of longitude. The remaining black void of the night reflected the face on the window, transparent to the pale orb of the moon.

She... "Marie..." he sighed. ....Could be dead. Something in his chest contracted, curled, and collapsed.

"At least we didn't bring her with us."

"I know." Hallelujah would not have spared even Marie, a girl who hadn't even been able to sense life beyond the quantum resonances of her mind and his double soul. The golden-eyed monster lived within and burned with a fierce selfishness.

A chuckle filled his ears. "The monster keeps you alive, Allelujah. We needed all the air we could get."

He closed his grey eye so he wouldn't have to see his yellow one, the moon and the sun hidden from view. His forehead met the cool glass, seeping coldness into his troubled minds. "That... that doesn't make it right, Hallelujah."

"It wasn't right for them to do what they did to us." Hard as the glass, the voice resonated deeply into the old wound. A grey eye opened, but the gold reflection looked past him and into space.

"Hallelujah...." He knew the helplessness they had felt during those experiments had been harder on his other self. Even if it had split one boy into two minds, even if that was the only reason they could retain separate identities, neither had asked for it, neither had wanted to be the military's science project.

Anger burned suddenly against the softer emotions Allelujah held. "Don't give me your pity. I'm the one who pities you. You can't do anything without me."

"I... I can help others, Hallelujah."

"Ha!" The sound of his laughter seemed to echo far too loudly, bouncing off the glass and polished metal of the room. The derisive sound was dripping with spite, heartless and ruthless. They would never agree, but they lived with that knowledge, their dual existence at odds yet essential for continuity.

"You didn't help her." Plain, undistorted, with a lack of emphasis. The face in the glassy mirror finally met him eye to eye, gold to silver, yet wholly unreadable.

His mouth may have opened, but no words escaped. Hallelujah's words clenched and dragged at his heart, excruciating with barbed truth. She was the one person who had mattered most to him....

"To us, Allelujah."

The gold eye softened, reflecting the tear that descended down their face and for once the reflection matched the true image perfectly. The sun rose over the horizon, scattering the light into a multitude of refractions, revealing the vulnerable world below. They watched the golden star ascend towards the moon together, sentinels with celestial eyes.

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_And wow, I posted something. Please leave a review if you enjoyed it or if you spotted any mistakes. Thanks!_


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